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Found in everything from space shuttles to dental fillings, composite materials have thoroughly infiltrated modern society. But their potential is still greatly untapped, offering researchers ample opportunity for discovery.

E.T.

Searching for Signs of Life

A computer model of myoglobin, a protein chain of 153 amino acids folded into a molecule

Though we've yet to find it, the search for other life in the universe continues ever on, thanks to researchers like Professor Purnendu "Sandy" Dasgupta. The Hamish Small Chair in Ion Analysis of Chemistry and Biochemistry was awarded nearly $1 million from NASA to further the hunt for amino acids, considered the building blocks of life.

Dr. Dasgupta will use the funds to extend his open-tubular capillary chromatography platform, which he developed to detect and isolate ions. His research is concerned with finding evidence of extraterrestrial existence and exploring the structural makeup of amino acids.

Amino acid molecules are chiral, meaning they have a rotational orientation (called a chiral form) that can be either right- or left-handed. But while amino acids synthesized in a flask will be composed of equal amounts of both orientations, those coming from a living system—like humans—will instead wholly or dominantly contain only one orientation.

"Life is centered on one type of chirality. It's like a mold—that handedness is preserved," Dasgupta explains. "If the amino acids are dominantly of one chiral form, that would fairly unambiguously prove that it is associated with some life process. In that case, it would definitely be of biological origin."